Silent Rage Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1982

Chuck Norris stars as the hard-hitting sheriff of a small Texas town that must face an unstoppable killer in Silent Rage, a fairly unique hybrid of the action and horror genres. When doctors infuse a near-dead mental patient with an experimental serum, their test subject gains immense powers and further fractures his already delicate mind; a bad combination of results, as Chuck Norris soon finds out…

The popularity and influence of slasher movies such as Friday the 13 th during the 1980's cannot be underestimated, for even hardcore action stars found themselves experimenting with the genre in their own quirky ways. Chuck Norris' Silent Rage is one such movie, and Charles Bronson's 10 to Midnight (released a year later) is another. But since this review is for Silent Rage, let's get the show on the road.

John Kirby (Brian Libby) is a disturbed individual that is barely clinging to sanity with the aid of his physician, Dr. Tom Halman (Ron Silver), and his medications. But one day the medications just aren't enough to block out the chaos of the outside world. As his mind slowly snaps, he phones Dr. Halman and tells him that he cannot suppress his violent urges, hangs up and promptly starts axing some of the loud house residents to death.

Sheriff Dan Stevens (Chuck Norris) quickly arrives on the scene and finds himself in a prolonged fight for his life against an unrelenting psycho. After a series of good tussles, Stevens is able to handcuff him and stuff him in the back seat of a police car, but you just can't keep a good psycho down. In a display of raw power Kirby snaps the chain of his handcuffs and kicks the back door off its hinges, beginning yet another rampage. Several pistol and shotgun shots later, Kirby is incapacitated.

The madman is quickly carted away to a hospital where some doctors struggle to bring him back to life, but the trauma of his wounds makes him little more than an unconscious vegetable waiting to die. As it so happens, two of his attending physicians, the aforementioned Dr. Halman and Dr. Phillip Spires (Steven Keats), happen to be involved with another division of the hospital that experiments with molecular engineering and genetic research. And they just so happen to have a serum that has never been tested on humans before. See where I'm going with this?

Dr. Spires decides since the man is going to die anyways this would provide the perfect opportunity to test their serum, which if all went as planned would boost his rejuvenation abilities to unnatural levels. Dr. Halman doesn't share his colleague's desires:

Halman: This isn't right. This is illegal and this is immoral. We have a vegetable here laying on the table that was a human being with a mind as well as a body.
Spires: Oh, is this where you're going to talk to me about souls and playing God?
Halman: No, I'll tell you exactly what I'm talking to you about. We don't know what the formula's going to do to this man's mind, Phil… Look, this guy's mind was unbalanced to begin with. Phil, I'm telling you, let this man die in peace.

Spires injects the serum anyways, and is amazed as the vegetable comes back to life. Scars that would take years to heal are gone in hours. His damaged internal organs are rejuvenated to the equivalent of a 20-year old man. And when the doctors cut deep slices across his chest, the gashes are healed in less than a minute. It seems he can heal quicker than people can wound him, which is a dangerous ability to grant to a psychotic killer just awoken from a coma. Perhaps Spires should have heeded Halman's advice.

The rest of the film is a combination of tension-filled stalking and killing scenes reminiscent of the horror classic Halloween and all-out martial arts action such as when Stevens teaches some manners to a bar full of rowdy bikers. Overall I really enjoyed Silent Rage, but due to its odd hybrid of genres it risks alienating some followers of both.

People expecting a typical Norris film with constant streams of flying fists and feet may be disappointed with this film since although such scenes are present, they are not frequent. Those expecting a slasher will very much enjoy many of the scenes, but may also scratch their heads at the occasional injection of martial arts action. But if like me you can enjoy both genres, you will probably find Silent Rage to be an unusual, yet entertaining, flick to watch.

Although this is a bold claim to make in a Chuck Norris film, I'd have to say Brian Libby steals the thunder with his awesome depiction of an unstoppable psychopath. The opening scene of the film definitely contains some of his best moments as we see him sweating profusely and desperately trying to block out the chaotic noise of screaming children and their equally obnoxious mother. He struggles to pop down some of his medicine but fails, so he stumbles down a stairwell slowly, growing all the more disturbed with each step. As he reaches the bottom floor and phones his doctor with a final desperate plea for help, his sanity finally eludes him. Words cannot do this scene justice – his acting, the cinematography and the eerie soundtrack are positively brilliant. So much so that I would say that scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Chuck Norris, although in peril of being outdone by Brian Libby, is great fun to watch nonetheless. Some of his performances in other movies have been criticized as being wooden, but I felt he possessed a more natural and carefree demeanor throughout this film. He still kicks butt with the best of them, but he also lets loose a roguish charm as he tries to romance an ex-flame.

In all reality Silent Rage may justifiably fall into the category of guilty pleasure due to its combination of Halloween meets Frankenstein meets Lone Wolf McQuade, but I'll be darned if it wasn't fun to watch.

Movie rating : 8 stars

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